Albanese hits back at Corrigan over freight hub

Federal Transport and Infrastructure Minister
Anthony Albanese
has criticised
Chris Corrigan
’s
Qube Logistics
for its “self-interested" attack on the government over rival public and private sector plans for a freight hub in western Sydney.

Mr Albanese said in Sydney on Wednesday that the government’s plan for a $2 billion freight hub in Moorebank, near Liverpool in Sydney’s south-west, would use public sector land to “mobilise private sector capital".

A consortium led by Qube Logistics, which is chaired by Mr Corrigan, plans to build a smaller hub on an adjacent piece of land in Moorebank.

Qube could tender to design, build and run federal Labor’s hub and abandon its own plans, but Mr Corrigan has been extremely critical of the goverment’s “socialist" plan.

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In a research paper issued on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley estimated that “the earliest timing for the proposed terminal to be operational is now 2017-18". Defence has a second option to lease the land until 2023.

The first phase of the government-owned hub is expected to be completed by mid-2017.

The hub would act as a transit point for containers switching from trucks to trains on the way to or from Port Botany, easing congestion on roads around the country’s second-largest container port. Mr Albanese said about 700 people had applied to sit on the board of a new government business enterprise to deliver its freight hub.